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From the Ethics of the Fathers: "He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it."

Tuesday, April 10, 2018

Netanyahu has always said that deployment of the Iranian-backed pro-Assad coalition near the Israeli border, constituted a red line.

Flags of Syria and Russia

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With all eyes on Israel’s southern front where Hamas is desperately trying to conceal the fact it has run out of military options
in its never ending war against the Jewish State, Hezbollah and the
pro-Assad axis seem to be gearing up for the long anticipated
confrontation with the IDF.

Iranian and Israeli media reported
last week that the pro-Assad coalition is preparing for an offensive
against Islamist rebel groups in the Kuneitra and Daraa provinces in
southern Syria.

The pro-Assad axis, which includes Hezbollah and other Shiite
militias, has reportedly deployed tanks and heavy artillery on the
Syrian Golan Heights.

Some of the weaponry is placed within the demilitarized buffer zone
along the Israeli border, a clear violation of the 1974 armistice
agreement between Syria and Israel which officially ended the Yom Kippur
War.

Israel is expected to file a complaint against the Syrian regime at
UNDOF, the now defunct international peace keeping force which left
Syria for Israel after Islamist rebel groups conquered the Syrian side
of the Golan Heights in 2013 and 2014.

Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu has always said that
the deployment of the Iranian axis, meaning the Iranian-backed pro-Assad
coalition, in the vicinity of the Israeli border, constituted a red
line.

Iranian and Arab media last week reported Russian is delivering new tanks, BMP’s and other heavy weaponry to Assad’s forces ahead of the Golan offensive.

Russia's dangerous double game

Russia is clearly playing a double game in Syria as became clear from a Reuters investigation which was published last Friday.

A team of Reuters reporters found out that Russia is using
civilian airplanes of the sanctioned Syrian airliner Cham Wings to
transfer Russian mercenaries from Rostov airport in southern Russia to
Syria.

There they are spearheading the battle against rebel groups in the
devastated country and are often the first ones to enter captured towns
and villages.

The Russian military contractors refused to talk about their mission but Reuters spoke with other sources who said there could be up to 3,000 Russian mercenaries fighting for Assad.

The mercenaries are working for Wagner, a Russian company owned by
oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, who maintains ties with the Russian Defense
Ministry and is close to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In December 2017, Putin announced he would withdraw Russian troops from Syria.

"I order the defense minister and the chief of the general staff to
start withdrawing the Russian group of troops to their permanent bases,”
the Russian leader said at the time.

Another indication Russia is trying to expand its influence in the
Levant and is playing a double role in the conflict between the Iranian
axis and Israel came from an Hezbollah official who spoke to The Nation reporter Sulome Anderson.

Sophisticated Russian weaponry gets to Hezbollah

The Hezbollah official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, revealed that Russia has delivered sophisticated weaponry to Hezbollah.

“Russia gave the maximum they could for Hezbollah. Hezbollah has T-90
light tanks in Qusayr. In addition, Hezbollah owns S-200
(surface-to-air) missiles,” the Hezbollah official said referring to a
town in the Qalamoun Mountains near the Lebanese border where the
Iranians are suspected of having built an underground nuclear facility.

The Hezbollah man also confirmed that Iran, together with the Shiite
terrorist organization, has built missiles factories in Lebanon, but
said the facilities only “upgrade” existing missile types. Israel is
concerned that Iran is helping Hezbollah convert crude rockets into
guided missiles which can reach sensitive facilities and population
centers in the country.

Other Hezbollah representatives told Anderson that Hezbollah is now
in the possession of “anti-aircraft, anti-ship, and long-range
missiles.”

The US and Russia vie over Lebanon

The Russians have also tried to drive a wedge between the United
States and the government of Saad Hariri in Lebanon by closing a multi-billion dollar deal
which would have included the delivery of modern Russian weaponry to
the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), intelligence sharing and training of
LAF soldiers.

The U.S. is the main supplier of military aid to the official
Lebanese army, which is today controlled by Hezbollah according to
Israeli military experts and politicians.

Prime Minister Saad Hariri reportedly scuttled the deal with Russia
claiming he’s under pressure from the U.S. and donors who have just pledged more than $11 billion to save the ailing Lebanese economy.

Hariri recently announced
he intends to increase LAF presence along the Israeli border, citing
Israel’s ‘hostile intentions’ and claiming the Jewish State remains “the
primary threat to Lebanon.”

The LAF has indeed increased its presence in southern Lebanon after
the IDF started to build a new security fence on the Israeli side of the
so-called Blue Line, the UN recognized international border between
Israel and Lebanon.

LAF soldiers have furthermore confiscated
armored vehicles of UNIFIL, the United Nations peace keeping force
which has proven to be useless in preventing Hezbollah from rebuilding
itself south of the Litani River after the 2006 Second Lebanon War.

Hezbollah has now built a new defense line
against an IDF invasion of southern Lebanon by turning hills into long
terraces with huge boulders which are meant to serve as traps for
Israel’s Merkava tank in the next war.

The Iranian Axis

The Lebanese news site Naharnet, meanwhile, reported that Hezbollah will wage any future war with Israel as part of “an axis.”

“Eisenkot and others know well that a choice of war is not a picnic.
The next time we fight, we will fight as an axis, we will not fight
alone,” the unnamed Hezbollah official claimed referring to recent
statements by Gaby Eisenkot , the Chief of Staff of the IDF, who predicted war with the Iranian axis recently.

The Lebanese president Michael Aoun has branded Eisenkot’s remarks
and other rhetoric used by Israeli officials in response to Iranian and
Hezbollah threats against the Jewish state “an act of war”.

“The regular Israeli officials’ threats are unacceptable and we consider them to be an act of war against Lebanon,” Aoun told UN envoy Pernille Dahler Kardel in Beirut on Friday.

It wasn’t the first time Aoun talked about war with Israel. He did so on numerous occasions over the past few months.

Aoun’s war rhetoric coincided with a new Iranian threat to raze the Israeli cities Haifa and Tel Aviv to the ground.

“If you want Haifa and Tel Aviv to be razed to the ground, you can
try your chance once again,” Ayatollah Sayyid Ahmad Khatami a member of
Iran’s Assembly of Experts told worshipers during Friday prayers in Tehran.

He too was responding to remarks made by Israeli officials and Eisenkot.

Israel speaks to Trump

All the above explains why Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu decided
to discuss “recent developments in the Middle East” with US President
Donald Trump in a telephone call which took place last week.

Trump last week raised eyebrows in CENTCOM, the US Central Command in
the Middle East, by vowing he would soon pull back the US Army from
Syria and alarmed the Israeli PM.

According to Associated Press the discussion between the two leaders “grew tense” when Netanyahu expressed his concerns about a possible premature US withdrawal from Syria.

The American President also drew the ire of his own military brass
when he reportedly refused to listen to their advice not to undermine
the new US policy on Syria which focuses on stopping Iran from taking
over the country.

CNNreported US military commanders left the White House meeting “beside themselves” about the President’s plan to leave Syria soon.

Trump has since then somewhat retracted his statements over a hasty
withdrawal from Syria and media reports suggest the U.S. military in
Syria is now setting up new frontline positions in the eastern and northern part of the country.

Israel, meanwhile, is closely monitoring the situation in Syria and Lebanon by using drones and other sophisticated intelligence gathering equipment.

Yochanan Visser is an independent journalist/analyst who worked for many years as Middle East correspondent for Western Journalism.com in Arizona and was a frequent publicist for the main Dutch paper De Volkskrant. He authored a
book in the Dutch language about the cognitive war against Israel and
now lives in Gush Etzion. He writes a twice weekly analysis of current
issues for Arutz Sheva

Source: https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/244136 Follow Middle East and Terrorism on TwitterCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.